Examining the Critical Factors Affecting Organizational Leadership in Higher Education Institutions

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to express my deepest gratitude for my research supervisor, fellow students, peers, and interview respondents from Southern Virginia Higher Education Center, teachers and my family members whose enormous and endless support has been a source of constant inspiration and guidance throughout the completion of this dissertation.

DECLARATION

I [your full first name and surname], declare that this dissertation and its entire content and research responses is the result of my individual unaided effort, and no part of this dissertation has been submitted or published before. This dissertation reflects my individual opinion in terms of the findings of the research on the topic of my dissertation, and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of my college.

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ABSTRACT

The purpose of the study is to explore the critical internal and external factors that affect the organizational leadership of the higher education. The higher education provides lower and upper division courses and programs in a central location. HECs face several social concerns that the present study addressed, such as, competition for scarce resources, the need to provide institutional data and a remarkable variation in the position of the president or principal of school. Therefore, the research questions basically involve the higher education's philosophies of leadership and approaches to leadership development, factors influence the selection of services, targeted populations, and desired outcomes, and physical, financial, human, and other resources required by the higher education. The findings from this exploratory, qualitative study add to empirical knowledge regarding HECs as integral parts of higher education systems. The study strove to contribute to the understanding of HECs as organizations that address demands for access and opportunity in postsecondary education. The study's findings are of value to individuals interested in establishing HECs, alternative higher education options, or other means of expanding postsecondary educational access and opportunities. The study adds to existing knowledge on the organizational leadership of HECs as a component of evolving higher education systems. The research comprised of a qualitative approach, in which, the research is conducted by reviewing literature from academic literature resources and also by conducting semi-structured interviews with 6 participants selected through purposive sampling. Purposeful sampling in qualitative research involves the intentional selection of the individuals and site to be studied. The interview questions will be constructed fulfilling the research aim which will answer the variables of the research study and its qualitative study. The sample size for the current study was expected to result in rich information that would help close the knowledge gap identified in previous research. The open-ended interview will consist of five interview questions carefully designed to obtain the perceptions of participants on the critical factors affecting organizational leadership in higher educational institutions with respect to their institution. The analysis of interviews and literature review resulted in the following six critical factors affecting the organizational leadership in higher educational institutions: 1) challenges to leadership 2) existing leadership 3) leadership prospects 4) Influencing aspects 5) leadership ideas and tactics, and 6) ...